Familias de Nuevo Leon, Su Limpieza de Sangre

“Familias de Nuevo Leon, Su Limpieza de Sangre” is a 152 page book full of genealogical information written by Lilia E. Villanueva de Cavazos. Her main focus are the Families of Nuevo Leon and their claim of cleanliness of blood through many documents. Before I go any the following paragraphs are from wikipidia and they describe what Limpieza de Sangre really was.

Limpieza de Sangre “cleanliness of blood”, referred to those who were considered pure “Old Christians”, without Muslim or Jewish ancestors.

After the end of the Reconquista and the expulsion or conversion of Muslim Mudéjars (Moors) and Sephardic Jews, the population of Portugal and Spain was all nominally European Christian. However, the ruling class and much of the populace distrusted the recently converted “New Christians”, referring to them as conversos or marranos if they were baptized Jews or descended from them, or Moriscos if they were baptized Muslims or descended from them. A commonly leveled accusation was that the New Christians were false converts, secretly practicing their former religion as Crypto-Jews or Crypto-Muslims. Nevertheless, the concept of cleanliness of blood came to be more focused on ancestry than of personal religion.

This stratification meant that the Old Christian commoners could assert a right to honor even if they were not in the nobility. The religious and military orders, guilds and other organizations incorporated in their bylaws clauses demanding proof of cleanliness of blood. Upwardly mobile New Christian families had to either contend with their plight, or bribe and falsify documents attesting generations of good Christian ancestry.

As you cna see form the above pragraph many religious, military orders, guilds, and other organizations required Limpieza de Sangre. Thus in this book there are transcriptions of many documents pertaining to land grants where the petitioner describes being descendant form old Christians. Overall it is a very interesting read and not to mention I found various of my ancestors listed in this book. I hope you do find yours also. Bellow you will find the table of content and see what families are mentioned int his book. Cover of Book:Table of Content:

Where to get a copy of the book: You can find a copy of this book at the Special Collections at the University of Texas Pan American, youc an click here to see if this book is available. You can also search WorlCat to see if a library near you has it.

About Moises Garza

This blog is an attempt to document my family and make you aware of resources that I find. I also hope that with this blog I can network with other researchers interested in this region and connect with long lost relatives. To keep up to date with this blog follow us with RSS feed, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Contact me at moisesgarza@gmail.com